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Chapter 8 reports research on the changing role of commissioning in the restructured public health system. The chapter will discuss how public health commissioning responsibilities have changed and become more fragmented, being split amongst a range of different organisations, most of which were newly created in 2013. It will focus on discussing how the re-organisation substantially changed the way public health commissioning is done, who is doing it, and what is commissioned, since the reforms. There have been significant changes in commissioning processes, with important consequences for what health improvement services are ultimately commissioned. Also new opportunities for creativity and joining public health with wider determinants of health (e.g. housing and leisure).

This chapter focuses on the relevance of SWB as a possible policy goal, and examines issues of measurement. It reviews and critiques different measures of health and well-being and explains the relevance of a measure of SWB for social policy. It describes how the concepts of mental health and quality of life have evolved within medicine and the social sciences. It then offers a critique of two of the most commonly used measures, Quality Adjusted Life Years and Health-related Quality of Life. It goes on to describe the concept of SWB and its measurement, drawing on the work as part of the International Wellbeing Group in developing the ‘Personal Wellbeing Index’. It explores the relevance of SWB measurement for social policy and argues that the development of new measures can inform policy decisions by providing comparable data about perceived quality of life across different groups in the population and between different communities.

Chapter five explores the importance of understanding child poverty and its relationship to children’s education. It takes a child-centred perspective to situate children in the context of their peer relationships, pupil-teacher relationships and parental relationships to explore their wellbeing and achievement at school. Education has the potential to be a vital passport for low income children, but many children are unsettled, undervalued and underachieving at school. This chapter explores the importance of education, of school social and academic life to children living in poverty, of educational transitions, of examinations and achievements, and of wellbeing, participation and inclusion at school. It looks at how school culture and the misunderstandings of teachers on the causes and consequences of poverty can present a barrier to the full participation of children living in poverty in their schooling. It also addresses the cost of a school day some of the parental factors that are suggested to influence a child’s education, such as the so-called ‘poverty of aspiration’. It concludes by looking at the policy responses of affluent societies, which aim to close the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children, and discusses why we need to flip the thinking on education for children living in poverty.

Positive mental health is a prerequisite for a good quality of life across the whole lifespan. It is an overarching concept, which intersects with a number of related concepts, psychological wellbeing, successful ageing and quality of life. Good mental health is increasingly understood as a combination of an individual’s personality, environment and lifecourse; it is also dynamic. Older people consider it to be characterised by: a sense of wellbeing, capacity to make and sustain relationships, ability to meet the challenges which later life brings, and ability to contribute both economically and socially. Mental health is viewed as equally important as physical health. Research identifies the core dimensions of mental health, and its sister concepts, as: resilience, remaining active and involved, having a purpose or role, being able to engage in social relationships, independence, keeping fit, having an adequate income, autonomy and self-efficacy. Survey evidence consistently shows that more than 85 per cent of older people have ‘good’ quality of life. One of the challenges of assessing and measuring quality of life, and related constructs, is capturing the intersection between the subjective and the objective. The promotion of mental health is increasingly recognised as a legitimate goal of social policy.

This chapter begins by highlighting the circumstances and conditions of participants’ lives preceding the introduction of the Bedroom Tax policy. This serves as a starting point for the chapter, illustrating that the policy was introduced into lives that were already characterised by income insecurity, employment precarity, and ill-health. It charts the ways in which participants responded to the implementation of the policy and the impact it had in informing decisions about moving or absorbing the extra rental expenditure. This chapter is concerned with the impact at the household level documenting how life became more difficult as the extra financial outlay placed a strain on participants financially, socially, and psychologically. In the final section, the focus turns to how the policy worked to transmit insecurity into the lives of participants’ children, furthering the inter-generational transmission of inequality through the introduction of a precarious housing situation which had not been there previously.

Transport is fundamental to health, wellbeing and quality of life. By providing accessibility and mobility, it contributes positively to population health in numerous ways. At the same time, many significant health challenges can also be attributed to particular ways of travelling, with the dominance of the private car a particular issue. Transport has the potential to address health inequalities, yet despite a recent upsurge of interest in the benefits of active travel, health is seldom a primary consideration in transport policy. Proposing an agenda for change that puts health and wellbeing at the heart of transport policy, we investigate how transport and health policy can intertwine to realise the benefits of transport while mitigating its negative impacts, and argue that the underlying purpose of transport policy must be to improve the health and wellbeing of citizens.

Instead of presenting the economy as a machine-like entity, this chapter reframes the economy as the outcome of everyday human actions. Using examples from New York and northern India it shows how people are recreating economies through their actions, and it discusses the ethical choices that are guiding these actions.

This chapter explores different ways of working. It shows how an over-emphasis on paid work and consumption is undermining people and planetary wellbeing. Using examples from the minority and majority worlds the chapter shows how people are using diverse forms of work to generate wellbeing.

This chapter explores different types of businesses. It shows how the surplus generated by businesses (whether capitalist, cooperative or community-oriented) can be directed towards people and planetary wellbeing. And it shows how a variety of people can play in role in making decisions about the uses of surplus.

This chapter explores the variety of ways that people secure the goods and services they need to survive. It shows how markets are being reshaped to address the wellbeing of producers and environments across the globe, and it shows how alternative markets closer to home are also addressing similar concerns.

This chapter explores the ways that different types of property are being transformed into commons that provide for people and planetary wellbeing. It shows how relations of care and responsibility are being applied to biophysical, social, cultural and knowledge resources so that access, use and benefit is widely distributed.

This chapter explores the ways that monetary and non-monetary forms of investment can generate widespread wellbeing. It shows how wealth, broadly defined, can be stored, safeguarded and directed in ways that might benefit people and the planet now and into the future.

The conclusion turns to the things that stand in the way of taking back the economy–any time, any place. And it explores how nature might offer inspiration for living with one another equitably, ethically and within earthly bounds.

This book is an attempt to establish how British children are doing. Of course, there is already a great deal of material available on children's well-being in the UK, and it specifically draws on it in this volume. However, the objective of this book is to bring the evidence together in one place, in a critical discursive review, which has not been carried out elsewhere. The aims of Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre are presented. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was the pioneer of well-being indices. The comparative studies of child well-being have found an association between spending on children and child outcomes. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data on spending on families with children indicates that since 1990 it has been increasing in most countries, including the UK. An overview of the chapters included in this book is provided.

This chapter brings together the findings and attempts to develop an index of child well-being for the UK. In particular, it tries to answer the question, was Ed Balls right? It also presents a summary of comparative evidence that has been drawn on throughout this book. The financial crisis in the UK began with the housing market in the US, where it was found that British banks had invested heavily in sub-prime housing loans. The Labour government's response to the developing recession was radically anti-cyclical. Under this government, there were no substantial cuts in benefits and services — in fact expenditure had been sustained, while revenue had fallen. It is shown that there is a best hope in the newly established Child Wellbeing Research Centre, although it is responsible only for English children and has a time-limited contract.

The popularity of bird feeding continuous to grow, enabling large numbers of people to see and enjoy the present of wild creatures in the own gardens. Such intimate encounters may represent a profoundly important way for an increasingly urbanized global population to connect with nature, with many possible benefits for human wellbeing. The book concludes that wild bird feeding is fundamentally for people.

Chapter 6 describes the changing context for partnership working in public health following the UK coalition government’s plans for returning lead responsibility for public health in England to local government while also creating a new agency, Public Health England, to provide support and national system leadership. The changes, contained in the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and introduced in April 2013, reinforce the importance of partnership working while introducing new partnership forms that are yet to be tested and evaluated. The new health policy landscape is described and an interim assessment of progress provided.